Details on House-Passed Minimum Wage and Estate Tax Rates

Someone asked me to specify exactly what the House bill outlines for a change in the federal minimum wage rate. Here's both (from WaPo) since the House Repugs packaged the estate tax ("death" tax) with the minimum wage change:

[If it passes the Senate, the bill would] raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, from the $5.15 rate on the books since 1997. The bill also would exempt from taxation all estates worth as much as $5 million -- or $10 million for a married couple -- and apply a 15 percent tax rate to inheritances above that threshold and as much as $25 million. For estates exceeding $25 million in value, the tax rate would be 30 percent.

Most congressional Republicans support the estate-tax cuts and oppose the minimum wage increase. Most Democrats take the opposite positions. Democrats said they saw a two-edged strategy in the GOP decision to couple the issues.

Democrats' eagerness to raise the minimum wage might attract enough support in the Senate as well as the House to pass the estate-tax cut, a major GOP goal. But if Senate Democrats block the bill because of their aversion to the estate-tax cut -- as their leaders have vowed to do -- House Republicans may at least be able to blunt Democratic accusations that they made no effort to help the working poor.